12 – You’re A Target

As weapons went, sleep was an odd one, but Roan embraced it anyways.

After stuffing his face with fast food, Dylan took him home, and he almost instantly crashed, sleeping for about twelve hours straight. When he woke up, after an unsettling dream where someone (he didn’t know who – dreams could be frustrating like that) was shot and fell on him, pinning him to the floor, blood seeping down on him like warm rain, it woke him up, mainly because he really had to pee.

He had just done so, and was getting ready to take a shower, when there was a brief knock on the door and Dylan peered inside. “Good. I thought I was gonna have to get you up before the cops arrived.”

See? This was why not sleeping was such a risk.

Dylan led him outside, where he got to see what the vandals had done. They had splattered the house with fake blood (mostly food coloring, but there was piss mixed in), and written ‘Your dead freek’ and ‘Fags’ on the side of his house in foot high black letters. Beneath them were three roughly parallel lines, deep knife (?) scratches in the wood about six inches long, probably mimicking a cat scratch mark.

Roan sighed wearily, and said, “Should I be worried that the spelling errors bother me more than the actual message?”

“You know, when the shock wore off, that’s what I thought. I thought, “Roan’s going to point out the misspelling and lack of apostrophe.” Do I know you or what?”

“I think you have grounds for divorce right there.”

“I would, if we were properly married. But we have a half assed civil partnership thing, which isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on.”

“Ain’t second class citizenship grand?”

He didn’t know the cops who arrived to take a report and pictures, a grim faced woman who was clearly the superior officer, and her rookie partner, who was new he might as well have had factory packaging still on him. Roan had figured that the vandals hit last night, when they weren’t yet home from the hospital, and since they got back late at night and had no cause to go around the side of the house, they never saw it. Dylan only saw it when he went out to his car.

The cops had been there for ten minutes, getting their statements and taking pictures,when an unmarked cop car rolled up, and Seb got out from the driver’s side. He was still rocking the vaguely Columbo-esque rumpled trenchcoat, although it was over a Law and Order worthy dark suit.  He gave the female cop a friendly nod as he walked up, so Roan knew who sold him out.

Seb glanced at the slurs, and said, “At least this is indisputable proof they’re complete fucking morons. I mean, the “freek” might be a white boy attempt to be ghetto, but there’s no excuse for abusing you’re.”

“Tell me about it.”

Seb gave Dylan a friendly nod. “How are you doing?”

“Oh, numb. I think I’m getting used to this kind of shit.”

Seb clapped a friendly hand on Roan’s shoulder, which he didn’t trust. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Seb, it was just he knew exactly what was coming. “Time to bring you into protective custody.”

Roan brushed his hand off his shoulder. “Which is jail without the charge. No thanks.”

“Roan, I warned you, and this shit ain’t getting any better. Your home phone number may be unlisted, but clearly the fundamentalist assholes know where you live. Until things lower from defcon four, the Chief wants you protected.”

He shook his head. “You wanna protect the morons from me.”

“No, that’s just a two fold reason for doing this.”

He was going to protest, but Dylan grabbed his arm and gave his bicep a little squeeze, his silent way of saying ‘Shut the fuck up’. “Hon, it isn’t safe here, not now. We probably should go.”

“They are not going to chase me out of my home.”

“No one’s chasing anyone out. Frankly, I’d like to get you out of here, take you into the mountains and cut off communication with the outside world for a week.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Seb said encouragingly.

“Except it’s not happening,” Roan told him, giving him a deadly look. The one he turned on Dylan was kinder. “You can’t expect me to do that.”

“I don’t. Well, we don’t really have the money for it right now anyways. But I think a new base of operations might be a good idea, Bruce.”

“Bruce?”

“Bruce Wayne,” Seb said. “Right?” Dylan nodded, and ignored the dirty look Roan was giving him.

He knew an argument he couldn’t win when he heard it. Still, he made a show of thinking it over, although his contempt for the idea was no act – he really didn’t want to give these fucks the impression they won even the most minor of battles. After a moment, he said, “We could move in with Scott and Grey. That would be funny.”

Dylan rolled his eyes. “You just want Grey to beat the shit out of them, and drag all his fellow enforcers with him.”

“Yeah! That would be hysterical. Can you imagine those toothless pigfuckers realizing they had to fight Grey? They’d have two seconds to shit their pants before they were punched into next Thursday. It’d be worth the admission.”

“Grey?” Seb wondered.

“Grey Williams,” Roan told him. “Chief enforcer of the Seattle Falcons.”

“The hockey team?” At his nod, Seb snorted a surprised laugh. “I’d heard you’d been hanging around with them, but I couldn’t believe it. What is it with you and big Canadians?”

“Grey’s American.”

“Still. How’d you get in with those jock boys?”

“Long story. But they like me because they’re guaranteed at least one good fight if we all go out on the town.”

“And their goalie has a huge man crush on him,” Dylan added.

“Only because we have similar reflexes.”

Seb looked between them curiously. “Whoa, you guys are serious?”

Dylan gave him a weary look. “Roan only has weird friends.”

“And Dyl covers the pretentious ones, so we have a good balance.”

The look Seb was giving them suggested he was about to pull out his taser and use it. He managed to suppress the urge (for the moment). “I – You know, I got nothin’. You’re all a buncha weirdos.”

“Quoting Sam the Eagle gets you bonus points.”

“Huh?” Dylan wondered.

“Muppet Show.”

“How young are you?” Seb asked Dylan. Dylan frowned, looking slightly offended. So Seb shook his head, and went on. “Considering the amount of shit you’re in, Roan, I think you need to avoid as many fights as possible.”

“What shit am I in now?”

“Garcia’s been suspended for one week, and is going to have to attend a cultural sensitivity class. “

“Ha.” So Thompson went ahead and reported what happened. Good on him.

“Speaking of which, where’s his service weapon?”

He tried on the most innocent expression he had. “How would I know?”

Dylan sighed heavily. “It’s in the glove compartment. I’ll go get it.”

“Aww,” Roan said.

“You have enough guns,” he scolded.

“The Chief wants to talk to you, probably to chew you a new one. I realize it was a tense situation last night, but what did you think you’d accomplish by putting Garcia in a chokehold and disarming him?”

“He’s a fuckhead, and he deserved worse.”

“That isn’t the point,” Dylan said, turning around and facing them. He wasn’t far enough away that he couldn’t hear them. “Yeah, he’s a macho asshole, but so are you. And none of the other people in that hall deserved to be hurt. What if that gun went off, or you couldn’t control your temper? Innocent people would have been hurt, and you couldn’t have lived with that, Roan, don’t tell me you could have. I understand that adrenaline was high and everyone was on edge, but that’s when you need to step back and be the more mature person. Think of others, not yourself. You like protecting people, Roan – protect them.” With that, he turned and walked to the car to get Garcia’s gun.

After a moment, Seb asked, “How’d you hook up with Dalai Lama?”

He could only shrug. He honestly had no idea. Presumably it was proof of irony in the universe.

They both watched Dylan get his keys out and unlock the car, and once the door was open, Seb turned to him and asked, in a low voice, “You know a judge named Lloyd Garver?”

He shook his head. “No. Why?” Technically it wasn’t a lie. He broke into his house, beat him half to death, but he didn’t really know him.

“What about a couple of Staties by the names of Carmody and Muhlfeld?”

“I don’t know any Staties. What’s this about?”

Seb studied him for a moment, as if trying to determine whether he was lying to him or not. But he caved with an extended exhale, like by giving him this he was acknowledging he was innocent. “Weird case came in, it’s McCluskey’s and Carey’s baby, but McCluskey was telling me about it. Judge Garver got seriously assaulted in his home – they don’t know if he’ll ever be able to use his right arm again – and he told a story about some guy who blamed him for a case that wasn’t his, but his story doesn’t make sense, and it’s changed several times. And he’s never explained why he didn’t shout and alert anyone else in the house.”

“So he’s lying.”

“Of course he is, and not well. You’d expect better from a judge. Oh, and a couple of Staties were viciously assaulted the same night – one in his condo, the other in his truck in front of his house – and some stuff at the scene points back to Garver, but the Staties say they barely know him, and they’re lying too. It’s really weird.”

“So why ask me about it?”

“The assailant – whom we assume was the same man – was incredibly strong, and seemed to be smart enough to leave the scenes relatively clean. Super strong and smart, it makes me instantly think of you.”

“I’m flattered. Sort of.” He was glad he’d been too tired last night (this morning) to rip off his no longer needed bandages, as all he needed to do was raise Seb’s suspicions about him even more.

He shrugged and looked away, probably so he didn’t see how defeated he was. Was he hoping he’d confess and solve the puzzle for him? “With everything that’s going on, a neat solution would have been great.”

“They’re usually hard to find.”

“Tell me about it. Oh, yeah.” He now fixed him with a stern look. “Stay out of the burn investigation. I know, it’s your people, all that, but it’s a police investigation, and when we need your help, we’ll let you know.” He let that sink in, and as Dylan came back, carrying the gun butt first, aimed at the ground and held out like he was afraid it might come alive and bite him, Seb asked, “Find out anything?”

“Not really. I’d just gotten started.”

Dylan gave him the gun, which he took with a grateful nod, and as he checked that the safety was on, Dylan shot him a quizzical and accusatory look. He knew he’d lied to Seb about not finding anything out, but he wasn’t going to rat him out. He was probably going to lecture him, though.

As soon as all the cops left and they went back in, Dylan said, “You’re still investigating this, aren’t you?”

“I just want to hear Bolt’s excuse before I throw him over to the cops.” Roan finished tearing off his bandages, and then went through his closet hastily and chose the t-shirt that said ‘When I Die, I Am Going To Haunt The Fuck Out Of You People’. That summed up his feelings pretty well.

Wearily, Dylan sat on the end of the bed. “No good can come of this.”

“I know. But that applies to everything.”

“Let me come with you.”

“No.”

“Hon -”

“There’s bound to be crazy protesters out in front of the Church. They probably know me by now, especially if they’re really into the anti-cat shit, but there’s some odds they have no idea what you look like, and I’d like to keep it that way for as long as possible.” He changed into black jeans that were baggy enough to accommodate a small gun. He wasn’t going to wear one, mainly because Dylan was watching everything he did, and if he went for a gun he’d insist on coming with him. But there was also the truth that he didn’t honestly need one. What was he scared of? What could take him now? In some perverse way, he wanted to find out – he wanted to stand on a bombing range and find out what it would take to kill him and the damn beast inside him. According to what little Holden had bothered to tell him about the showdown at the snuff house, the ones that ran escaped (generally), while the ones that stayed to fight probably wouldn’t be turning up any time soon. Which indicated they never got a decent head shot. But getting a head shot on a rapidly moving target was a specialized skill, even if you were expecting it to happen.

“I’m not afraid of being seen with you. Why do I care what those intolerant idiots think?”

“Because they could target you. You’ve been hurt enough by fuckheads after me. They want me, they can come after me alone.”

“Just because they see me doesn’t mean they’ll know me. I doubt they’re the type that come to Silver. I don’t even have a Facebook page – how would they ever identify me?”

“Your friends have pictures of you with them on their Facebook pages, yeah? It wouldn’t be hard to figure you out. If they can find me, they can find you.”

Dylan considered this with a grimace. He wanted to argue it, but the freaks had found him, which the graffiti obviously proved. “You know, I made my choice. I knew what I was getting into. I knew the risks.”

“Yeah, but can you blame me for wanting to shield you from that?”

He stood up with a sigh. “No, I suppose not.” He then put his arms around him and hugged his back as he removed a jacket from the closet. Dylan slipped his arms beneath his shirt so he could touch his skin, a gesture both comforting and sensual. He kissed his neck, and said, “If you cause trouble or get yourself hurt, I will kick your ass.”

“Some Buddhist you are.”

“Doesn’t mean I don’t get mad.”

True enough. And really, he knew better than to push it. He was Buddhist, but he wasn’t perfect.

He drove to the church wondering which scenario was worse: Bolt had no idea anyone was selling drugs at his church; he knew but he didn’t care; he knew but he was getting a cut; he was selling it. Either he was an idiot (well intentioned or born  that way) or a completely evil bastard. You’d think idiot would be better, but hadn’t George Bush proved that wasn’t always the case? The best case scenario here was drugs weren’t being sold at the church on a regular basis, that there were floaters who would crash their little infected meet and greets, but Hardy seemed to imply the territory was taken full stop.

He had to stop to get some gas, so he bought a soda and a packaged pastry with indefinable goo (but Homer Simpson said purple was a fruit, so he was going to have to take that as a given), and he got a glimpse of the newspaper headlines as the cashier was ringing him up. The guy was big and doughy, and could have been any washed up high school football player that ever existed, but he kept looking at him funny, and finally said, “You look familiar. Do I know you?”

As he scooped his change off the counter, he said, “Doubt it. I get that a lot.”

That didn’t satisfy him. “Are you an actor or something? I swear I’ve seen you on TV.”

Roan shook his head as he left the claustrophobic mini-mart. “Sorry, can’t help you.” Oy gevalt – there were definite downsides to sticking out in a crowd. Maybe he should dye his hair. He always thought he’d look good with purple hair; dark, blue-purple as opposed to red-purple. Maybe next time he should say he was on To Catch A Predator and leave it at that, but that was a smart ass strategy that could backfire. Say he was on Cops once?

He ate half the pastry before washing it down with soda and a couple of codeine, and wondered where they could stay for now. Although bunking with any of the Falcons was a funny idea, they generally lived in apartments, and usually together, as there really wasn’t a lot of money in minor league athletics. If you got a ride to the majors, sure, but until then, not so much. Scott and Grey would probably still let them bunk over in spite of the close quarters, even Tank (he had no idea who he lived with, if anyone), but he really didn’t want that much togetherness.

He could ask Dylan to stay with one of his pretentious art friends, but Dyl had already made it clear they were a package deal, and he wasn’t going to let Roan dance with danger all by himself. So … where did that leave them?

A motel was out. They could afford a cheap shit one for a while, but security wasn’t just nil, but deep into negative numbers. This was where you saw America’s class divide: fancy, expensive hotels usually had security comparable to their costs. A very expensive hotel would be ideal for safety, but there was no way in hell they could afford it. What they could afford would have them killed within five minutes of arrival.

So who did they know that might have room, and wouldn’t have some kind of objection to a couple of gay dudes sharing a bed under their roof? Until now, he hadn’t realized that most of their friends lived in apartments or condos. What about Dropkick and Kim? Didn’t they have a place near Queen Anne? Of course he didn’t know how big their place was, and a couple of gays and a couple of lesbians sharing a house sounded like a bad sitcom waiting to happen.

Hey – Kevin. He had an inherited house that he freely admitted was way too big for him, and sometimes when Roan talked to him he would drop hints on how lonely he was. And not only did he live in a sort of hard to find area, but he was a cop, and how was that for protective custody? He probably had more than enough room for him and Dylan. Okay, he had a buttload of animals at his place, and animals had a tendency to freak out around him, but maybe they could work something out. He put in a call to Kevin to ask him, and got his voice mail, which was fine, as it made it easier to ask. Kevin could just respond with a yes or no, and they could move on from there.

He parked in a commercial lot down from the church and walked in, mainly because he didn’t want any of these idiots seeing his car and deciding they wanted to vandalize it too.

There were under two dozen protesters outside the church, carrying signs (he looked for misspellings, and wasn’t surprised to see they all knew how to spell “fuck” perfectly) and shouting, and there were three rent a cops standing at the edge of the church’s property, ostensibly to keep the crowd under control, but if the crowd got any bolder these guys wouldn’t have much of a chance. Perhaps the obvious security cameras trained on them were keeping the protesters from getting any stupider.

He was hoping to walk up unnoticed, he even hid as much of his hair as he could under an Archie McPhee baseball hat, but someone recognized him and shouted, “Hey, he’s one of ‘em!”

He glared at the crowd as they turned his way. “Isn’t there a Planned Parenthood you could be annoying?”

They started shouting something at him, more or less in unison, and it could have been “Page the brats” or possibly “Cage the cats”, which made more sense, but he amused himself by thinking they just wanted to page their children and didn’t know how.

A couple of the bigger men and a pushy woman tried to block his path on the sidewalk, and while he was aware one of the rent a cops was coming his way, he didn’t feel like humoring these people who hated him for a disease. As if they were somehow immune, as if they were safe from a virus, as if good straight white Christian people never came down with it.

He roared at them, a half shout that morphed into the lion sound, not a full bore one but only because he wasn’t sufficiently mad enough (the codeine had kicked in too, and that sometimes helped keep his anger from slipping the leash so easily). But it was enough to visibly stun them, make the man with the more impressive beer gut stumble off the sidewalk. He kept walking forward, glaring at them in turn, like he was trying to decide which of them would make the best snack (and was he growling a little? Oh, maybe …) and they moved out of his way. They weren’t chanting anymore either. Wasn’t so easy to be an angry mob of villagers when the monster actually decided to bare his fangs, huh?

But as soon as he was past, someone from the back of the crowd, emboldened by his distance, shouted, “You’re a monster! You shouldn’t be around people!”

“Monster” and “Freak” began to randomly generate from the crowd, and Roan flashed them the bird over his shoulder as he walked up the porch to the church’s front door. As it turned out, he didn’t even have to knock, as the door opened almost immediately, and a trim blonde woman who looked like she could have been knocked over by an errant breeze (most likely Bolt’s assistant) gestured him on. “Please come in.”

He didn’t have to be asked twice.

Once inside, she escorted him to Bolt’s office, which was Eli’s old office. In fact, it was still Eli’s old office. The make of the computer on the desk had changed (probably because Roan had inherited the incriminating hard drives), but otherwise it was exactly the same, from the heavy, almost baroque curtains to the needlessly self-indulgent widescreen TV. Bolt was standing up behind his desk, reading something. “You know, you should have called ahead. We could have arranged an escort for you.”

“I don’t need an escort.” The woman had already left, closing the door behind her. Holy shit, was she from a temp agency? She was so efficient he wondered if Eli had invested in androids.

Bolt held up what he had been reading, and to his well concealed horror, he saw it was that damned magazine article; he got to see his own feral, vulpine face staring out at him from a two dimensional world before Bolt tossed it back down on his desk. “You know, this is super impressive. I mean, I knew you probably had to face a lot of hurdles, but until it was all spelled out for me I didn’t really realize it, you know? And being gay on top of it? Wow. When they were handing out attributes, you got all the short straws, didn’t you?”

The worst part was he said it in a jovial manner, like it was a joke, like he meant it in a good way. Roan glared at him. “I was wondering if you were as much of a dick as I thought you were. Thanks for confirming it.”

Now he looked genuinely surprised. “What? I – it was a joke. I wasn’t trying to offend you -”

“Tainted burn is making the infected transform out of sequence and go crazy,” he interrupted. “I know it’s being sold in your church. Not only does it have to stop, you need to point me towards the dealer who’s supplying you.”

His shock was permanently etching itself on to his face. His mouth opened and closed soundlessly, then he paused, teeth clicking as he shut his jaw, and tried again. “We don’t sell drugs here -”

“I have it on some authority that this is the territory of some minor league dope slinger who goes by the street name Spaz. Ring any bells?”

He let out the slightest of laughs as he shook his head. “No. Spaz? Are you shitting me? Who would call himself Spaz?”

He didn’t smell a lie, or at least not a total one. “Someone here is selling it. Apparently it leaves you painless, or at least has that reputation, so I can see why the infected are flocking to it. But it’s a weapon meant to kill us. It’s being sold here, Bolt, and it’s killing your people. Are you going to help stop it or not?”

Here was a man never cut out for true leadership. He seemed to be mentally flailing, his eyes betraying his thoughts – he was wondering who was doing this, who was screwing him behind his back. After a moment, he said, “Of course I’ll help. If that’s going on, it has to stop. But I assure you, I don’t kn -”

And that’s when they both heard the first burst of gunfire.

11 – How We Exit

There were many bad things about relationships, such as your partner using guilt as a weapon, which is how Roan ended up back in the emergency room.

He could heal at home, but the EMT’s didn’t know that, and he wasn’t inclined to tell them. Dylan was insistent he should go, and along with the heavy guilt trip Dyl was laying on him, he was tired, achy, and felt like he’d been vivisected and stapled back together by a carpenter with a severe case of the DTs. In the ambulance they gave him fluids and a painkiller that had no effect on him whatsoever, so they dialed it up a notch, and the rest of the night slid by in a candy coated blur. He noted the media circus in front of the building, a glare of spotlights and news reporters with shiny hair like foil, but he didn’t care – that’s how good the drugs were.

He didn’t actually remember leaving the scene. The next thing he remembered was waking up in a place that smelled like industrial disinfectant and blood, a dark curtain surrounding him, keeping him out of view of people who came and went in the ward. He still had the IV in his arm, but he had lost some blood, so it would be there. In spite of the reek that threatened to give him a headache, his stomach growled.

Dylan wasn’t here, but he might not be allowed to loiter, as he was pretty sure he was just off in one corner of a treatment area, perhaps a way station between the ER and a room. He sat up, and lifted up the starchy white sheet, as he felt scratchy fabric on his legs. Yep, his clothes were gone, he was stripped to his boxers. He was glad he hadn’t worn the ones with holes in them, as that really would have been embarrassing. What kind of gay man wore holey underwear? Besides the Mormons, of course. (Holey equaling holy, and how stoned was he that he was explaining his own jokes to himself, and still finding it funny? They gave him some great shit. He had to get the recipe.) But at the end of the bed was a folded pair of blue scrubs, shirt and pants. Left there by Luke (if he was in Saint Joe’s), Dylan, Dee? He didn’t know, he didn’t care, he was just grateful.

He was bandaged up like a mummy. He felt surgical glue holding together the bigger divots scratched into his chest, but otherwise he was bandaged up like he was a stuffed animal leaking stuffing. They were on his legs, abdomen, chest, even on his chin and his cheek (the result of being bitten, he supposed). Stupid. As soon as he could do a partial transformation, he’d  be okay.

Getting the pants on was no problem, except he was a little woozy, but the shirt was a bit of a pain, what with the IV to work around. He was tempted to rip it out, but he thought he should wait until he was in a place where  no one would walk in on his partial transformation to stop the bleeding.

He was trying to figure out what to do with the IV when Thompson peaked through the curtain. “Oh good, you’re up. I figured they doped you like Courtney Love.”

“I’d actually be dead if that were the case.” He sighed. “I suppose you want a statement.”

“Part of the job.”

“I remember.” So he told him what happened from his side of the proceedings, and Thompson took it all down, nodding almost spasmodically. Once Roan was done, he flipped his notepad closed, and tucked it away in his jacket. “Pretty much confirms your boyfriend’s statement, and that Japanese kid’s. What’s with his hair?”

“He’s emo. Or at least that’s my guess.”

“I thought that was passe now.”

He shrugged, and it kind of hurt, as it pulled at some of the healing scratches. “ Everything has some kinda following.”

Just the way he was nodding compulsively, the look on his face betraying impatience, he knew he was dying to ask him something. Finally he did. “So, off the record, what the hell were you doing at a know drug dealer’s place at midnight?”

“I was trying to find out who was moving tainted burn. You know, the stuff that made that guy leopard out and go nuts.”

His look was mildly skeptical, but not enough to be offensive. “Yeah, I thought I heard that. But dude, this is a police investigation.”

“Maybe, but these are my people. They’re dying and being vilified in the press. I have to do something.”

That left him at a loss, not sure what to say. What did you say to that? So Thompson just nodded and told him to take care of himself before ducking out the curtains. Roan gave him a minute and a half to clear the area, then got up and left, bringing the wheeled IV stand with him. He was going to find a bathroom or something, duck into a stall, and rip the fucker out.

He found his way to the bustling corridor, where everybody was too busy to notice him. Or so he thought. He’d probably gotten about three meters from his room when he heard, “Roan?”

He turned, expecting a lecture from someone, and was surprised to find Tank standing there, dressed in a Falcons sweatshirt and sweatpants, his hair half wet and sticking out at odd angles. He also had a fresh cut just barely visible on the side of his neck, underneath his chin. As if tonight hadn’t been surreal enough. Almost in unison, they asked, “What happened to you?”

They then stared at each other, and Tank chuckled. “Rock paper scissors?”

“Naw. I wrestled a cat. You?”

“Slapshot hit me in the face, broke my facemask, and I got a cut out of the deal. I also thought I was back in Laval-des-Rapides for a minute and a half, but luckily we had smelling salts. I played out the game, but they wanted to make sure there was no damage.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Though if I was brain damaged, who could tell, eh?”

“I know the feeling.” Fi had told him why the Falcons were so seemingly gay friendly, and it had nothing to do with Scott, their secret bisexual Captain. It was all Tank. It seems he had a sister, Francoise, who was ten years older than him and quite the hockey player – she played for the Canadian women’s hockey team at the Olympics on a couple of different occasions and medaled. She taught him all she knew about hockey, got him started in his career, and he absolutely idolized her. And she was very lesbian – she married her girlfriend up in Montreal last year. So while Tank would put up with the usual jock-y name calling and banter (homo, bender, et cetera), if you trotted out a deliberate gay slur, Grey would step in so Tank didn’t kill anyone. So they had to watch it, or Tank (or Grey stepping in for Tank) would make your life miserable, and frankly nobody wanted to piss off their star goalie anyways. Not only was his temper frightening, but if they wanted to finish the playoffs, he was their ticket. It did explain some of Tank, but not all of him.

“Should you be out of bed? You don’t look so good.”

“I’m fine. Or I’ll be fine, soon as I can get a minute. Know where the bathrooms are?”

Tank shook his head. “Haven’t been here long enough.” After a moment, he added, “You wanna get that IV out? Let me find somethin’, we’ll tie your arm off above it, that way when you pull it it won’t spurt.”

He chuckled in disbelief. “Dare I ask if you’ve done this before?”

“Can I plead the … what do you Americans plead?”

“Besides guilty? Usually the Fifth.”

“I plead that then.”

“Fine. Come on, you can aid and abet me.”

“Worst come on I’ve ever heard,” he replied, and then gave him a toothy grin, showing he still had all his teeth, although they weren’t all perfectly straight.

He and Tank found a currently unused room (judging from the light boxes on the wall, it had something to do with radiology), and Tank “found” some surgical tubing that Roan was sure he’d liberated from a supply closet. He tied a tourniquet around his arm so tight it hurt, but when he pulled the IV needle out, it barely bled at all, and he couldn’t feel it. Tank had brought a gauze pad – surely from the same supply closet – and slapped it on before looping surgical tape around it. He didn’t need to do that, but he wasn’t going to do a partial change in front of him, so okay, he could live with it for now.

Roan left the IV stand out in the hall, although he cleaned his blood off the needle (well, safety first, and his blood was a biohazard), and they made their way towards the waiting room, where he was sure Dylan probably was.

They barely reached its invisible demarcation line when a middle aged guy in hunter plaid, who reeked of cigarettes and beer, launched out of his hard plastic chair, and snapped, “You! You’re one of those kitty fucks, aren’t ya? I’ve seen you on the news.”

Roan sighed wearily. This was the problem with having very recognizable hair color. “Sir -”

“You cocksuckers killed my step-daughter. You should all be fucking shot!”

He was still coming towards him, walking with angry purpose, but Tank stepped between them and warned, “Back off.”

“You one of ‘em too? You a diseased freak?”

Out of the corner of his eye, he was aware a big burly orderly was making his way over to them, but wouldn’t be in time. The guy had already pulled back his fist and let it fly.

Not that it got anywhere close to its intended target. Tank dodged it easily, and landed a sharp rabbit punch in the man’s side, right where the  supremely breakable short ribs were, before kicking his leg out from under him and sending him crashing to the floor on his knees. “You an idiot?” Tank asked him, switching on his crazy intense guy goalie persona with a frightening ease. His eyes smoldered in their sockets like braziers.“I’m goin’ easy on ya. Ya wanna see hard? Do ya? Speak when you’re spoken to, assface.”

By this time, the orderlies had arrived and intervened, putting themselves between all the combatants. A hard faced nurse with viciously short hair came over, opened her mouth to berate them, then paused and asked, “Mr. Beauvais? Aren’t you supposed to be in exam two?”

He shrugged diffidently, and suddenly he was back to his normal sleepy eyed self. Good lord, how did he do that? “I got tired of waiting, wanted to stretch my legs.”

“It’s my fault,” Roan said, covering for him. “I asked for his help tracking down my boyfriend.”

The nurse gave him a gimlet eyed glare as plaid man was dragged off, shouting, “You motherfucker! I’m gonna kill you! I’m gonna kill all you freaks!”

“Charming,” Roan sighed, dry washing his face. He was aware that those in the waiting room that cared about the spectacle were seventy-thirty on plaid guy’s side, giving Roan dirty looks. Cats weren’t anyone’s favorite creature right now.

Tank must have noticed, because he put his arm around his shoulders, and announced, “You mess with him, you mess with all the Falcons, and I don’t think you wanna do that, eh?”

Well, there was no need for that, but he appreciated the gesture and sentiment. And with Tank turning his laser focused gaze on the waiting room crowd, suddenly everybody had something else to look at. Roan wished he had a “don’t fuck with me” stare of that magnitude.

“I can’t leave you alone for one moment, can I?” a man said, suddenly joining them. He was on the short side of average, maybe five five, with a bit of a beer gut and slicked back black hair, his face average but with a pleasant kind of doughy softness that suggested he was probably a decent guy who never liked to make a fuss. He was wearing a dark polo shirt, dark slacks, and a Falcons team jacket. He looked vaguely familiar, and Roan finally placed him as the Falcons’ trainer, the guy who saw to them when players got hurt on the ice. He noticed him, and said, “Hi. Paul Stapleton.”

“Roan McKichan.”

“Oh, I know. Grey told me you were the only guy he ever sparred with who kicked his ass. Nice to meet you.” He then gave Tank a stern look and pointed behind him.“Get back in there, now.”

“Why? I don’t have a concussion. I just got my bell rung. You take a hundred mile shot in the face and see if that doesn’t leave you speaking French.”

See, now Roan felt that was a fair point. Even with a high impact mask between him and it, that was still a hell of a thing, and the fact that Tank managed to finish the game in spite of it spoke volumes about his stubbornness. Paul just continued to stare at him and continued to point, and Tank sighed wearily, turning away. “Au revoir, Roan.”

“Bon voyage, Tank.” It wasn’t the only French he knew, but au jus probably didn’t apply here.

He heard Dylan say, “Hey Tank,” before he turned around, and Dylan caught him up in a big bear hug. “I should have known that you’d get into trouble.”

“I’m a trouble magnet,” Roan agreed, enjoying the hug in spite of the bruising pain to the cuts on his torso.

After a moment, Dylan held him back at arm’s length, looked him up and down, and shook his head. “You’ve already got the IV out. How fast do you do these things?”

“Tank helped.”

“I’m sure he did.” He sighed wearily. “Hon, I know most of my friends are pretentious jerks, but most of your friends are fucking weirdos.”

“I know. You do realize I also consider you one of my friends.”

“Yes. It’s a cross I have to bear.”

“Where were you?”

“Visiting Holden. I thought I ought to pop in, see how he was doing.”

“How was he? Besides bruised.”

“A little depressed, but you’d expect that. He hates hospital food so much I was thinking of making a run to Jack In The Box and getting him something to cheer him up.”

“Ooh, could you pick me up something? I’m starving.”

He gave him the put upon sigh, and said, “Fine, I’ll play gofer. Is there any chance at all you’re staying here tonight?”

“No.”

“That’s what I thought. Go visit Holden, and try not to start any more fights.”

“I didn’t start it. I was just here.”

He patted him on the shoulder. “I know. Just wait until you heal before you  go and kick someone else’s ass.”

He saluted sarcastically, making Dylan frown at him. But still he kissed him before leaving, and Roan made his way to the elevators, figuring if he got one alone maybe he could do a partial change. But his luck wasn’t good, as he ended up sharing an elevator with a nurse and a guy in a wheelchair with a broken leg. They both looked at him like something the cat dragged in – no pun intended. Oh, well, maybe a little.

Holden was sitting up on the bed in his room, reading an Entertainment Weekly that someone must have smuggled in for him, the cover displaying the empty eyed smile of a sitcom star he didn’t recognize. Holden’s face was less swollen now, reduced to a more reasonable level, and the eye that had swollen shut was almost open again, although it was a grape-y dark purple that looked painful. “Wow, what happened to your face?” Holden asked him. Coming from him, that was kind of funny, but Roan didn’t feel like laughing.

“Leopard tried to eat it.”

“So you ate his instead?”

“No. I didn’t have any mustard handy.” He sat in the plastic chair that was still warm from Dylan, and said, “It’s done. Your friends might be worse off than you.”

He put the magazine down on his lap, and looked surprisingly pensive. “Thank you. I realize you’re not a weapon for hire, but -”

“All those fuckers deserved it,” he told him, and it even surprised him how much venom was in that statement. But he hated anyone who abused their authority, judges and cops especially. He was aware that, being a former cop who lost his job because he kicked the shit out of a drunken wife beater, this made him something of a hypocrite, but at least it could be argued that the guy probably deserved worse.

Although Holden blinked in surprise, he seemed to let it go. “Things have taken a turn for the shit, haven’t they?”

“I’m sure things are going to get worse.”

“Before they get better?”

Roan looked at him, and wondered if he should tell him the truth, or just go for the comforting lie.

Sometimes there was just no way to win.

Using this handy dandy internet service, I have put together a “soundtrack” to the first book or two of my Infected series. So many songs and artists are mentioned that I trimmed it down to twenty (yes, twenty) in this first go round, and it should give you a good idea of the listening habits of Roan and Paris (and the  author). So give it a listen and enjoy (if you can – it’s all over the place musically).

And don’t forget there’s a special edition e-book on sale at Amazon!